In 2012, I got back my A lvls and it wasn't good enough for
NUS Med (Chemistry was B). Because I was from Hwa Chong, we are invited to interview with Peking, Tsinghua, Fudan (and it's a guaranteed shoo-in). I did my interview with Fudan (I was born in China but came to Singapore when I was 5 and got my citizenship, I consider myself Singaporean, as I rarely travelled back to China in all these years, have no friends or relatives in China and my Chinese isn't good).
My
mom wanted me to study in Fudan because she was a doctor in China, of course when she came to Singapore, she cannot practice and had to switch to do research. I rejected my offer+scholarship from Fudan though, because I don't want to study 8 years in China, and at the risk of getting asked to leave (the bottom few % will be asked to leave every year, until the 8th year). In hindsight I was right because covid-19 happened, and China is so badly hit.
My other option is to study business in
NUS (parents don't allow me to choose other courses). In 2014, I went for an exchange to Peking, must say I hated it. The professors' level of English was REALLY BAD. The school facilities were also very run down. Shudder to imagine how studying medicine will be like.
Although I hated business, and only got 2nd lower, I hustled and did eventually manage to find a good job in
MAS. And currently I applied for and got accepted to many American schools for Master in Finance, which I will finance with my savings from work all these years, plus a partial scholarship from the school in US.